“I grew up in the space program . . . before there was even NASA.”
It was an email out of the blue, forwarded by a reader eager for me to write about the story Tom Shay had to tell.
“I bet there are a few people in Presque Isle who know the intimate connection their town has had with the space program,” wrote Shay, a former Presque Isle resident who now lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Intrigued by the details in his email, I did some research, then gave Shay a call. He was eager to talk about days in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Presque Isle, Maine, was the first and last home for an intercontinental cruise missile called the Snark.
“The pads are still there behind the hangars,” he said. “You can’t get more real than that. I’d encourage you to stand, kneel down and touch a pad. Real history.”
He was referring to a time when what is now the Skyway Industrial Park in Presque Isle was the Presque Isle Air Force Base.
During World War II the base had been the embarkation point for the delivery of lend-lease aircraft to the United Kingdom and for overseas movement of Army Air Forces personnel and equipment. After the war, the Presque Isle base was reactivated by the Air Force to provide air defense for the northeastern United States with the 23d Fighter-Interceptor Wing.
In March of 1957, the Air Force designated Presque Isle as the only site for the first SM-62 Snark intercontinental cruise missile, under the 702nd Strategic Missile Wing of the Strategic Air Command.
The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “How Presque Isle became home to a sleek 67-foot, radio-controlled Cold War-era missile,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Kathryn Olmstead, please follow this link to the BDN online.
